Sports fans everywhere are outraged following the butchered call by baseball umpire Jim Joyce in Detriot Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga’s quest for a perfect game.
Immediately, Twitter and other social media sites were abuzz about the injustice that occurred with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Less than a day later, Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga are the top trending topics on Google and blogs like this one are all over the place.
That single play in a baseball game, and the subsequent public reaction, reveal much about our collective humanity. Innate within us is a common thread that is woven in us all- even the tribe of us barbaric, male sports fans.
We crave justice. When Jim Joyce signaled the base-runner safe, all those who watched felt something. That something is the common thread we all share: that wrongs must be made right.
The theological term is justification. It’s what the world feels about the current oil spill in the gulf coast, or the mistreatment of women and children caught up in the sex slavery, or the destruction that hit the nation of Haiti. Wrongs must be righted. And for a brief moment in a baseball game, we all agreed on what was wrong: the missed call.
Why?…
Nobody’s perfect. If we’re honest, we know that in us, and in this world, something is not right. That something is amiss. Unlike baseball players, baseball umpires are expected to bat a thousand. The problem is they’re humans. And we humans are simultaneously created good yet are born flawed beings. We make mistakes. We miss the mark.
But…
True repentance is a thing of beauty. Umpire Jim Joyce is a class act. ESPN reports how he handled his big oops:
“Galarraga bitterly sipped a beer minutes after the blown call negated his place in baseball history. An apology and hug changed his attitude after Joyce, in tears, asked for a chance to apologize [emphasis mine]…. ‘It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it,’ Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires’ locker room. ‘I just cost that kid a perfect game.’
Jim Joyce didn’t let his pride get in the way, make excuses, or defer to a PR firm. He owned his mistake, admitted it for all to see, and attempted to make things right with the one he wronged. Leonard Cohen once sang, “When they said repent…I wonder what they meant.” Well, Mr. Cohen, I believe this is what they meant.
Finally…
Nothing’s more powerful than forgiveness. Forgiveness rights the wrong of another even when they don’t deserve it. It wipes clean a debt that’s owed. Forgiveness is not fair and that’s what makes it good. It’s the wonder of amazing grace.
Armando Galarraga displayed grace as he immediately publicly forgave Joyce. According to Tonic.com:
“When a Detroit Free Press reporter approached Galarraga in the locker room after the game and informed him that Joyce felt truly terrible and apologized for the botched call, it wouldn’t have been surprising if the pitcher used the opportunity to call Joyce every name in the book.
But this amazing pitcher chose not to do that. Instead, he showed him something much different: forgiveness.
‘Tell him no problem,’ Galarraga told the Free Press. ‘I can go tell him.’
Then he smiled. ‘I should probably talk to him. It will be better.’ And he did.”
Author Philip Yancey writes, “Grace baffles us because it goes against the intuition that everyone has that, in the face of injustice, some price must be paid.” Forgiveness is not easy, but it’s necessary to survive with people who sin against us and those we sin against. There’s no peace and reconciliation without forgiveness.
When it comes to our relationship with God, all of us have fallen short. Nobody’s perfect. Our craving for justice, to right wrongs, mirrors that of our Creator. We have wronged against God and someone must pay.
Thankfully, God became a man in Jesus Christ and took the blame for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that “For our sake God made him who knew no sin, to become sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That, my friends, is good news. That’s the gospel of grace. On the cross, the keg of God’s grace was tapped and is available to all. All we have to do is put our faith in him and follow him. In light of this amazing grace, we live our lives and offer it to others.
Grace.
This is what we learned from a Wednesday night baseball game in Detroit.
